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by r3trohack3r
1377 days ago
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Science is a deeply personal philosophy that guides how an individual interacts with the rest of society. Skepticism, reproducibility, and verification. It is fundamentally _not_ trust based. The body of scientific knowledge is distinct from other forms of knowledge in that it is documented in such a way that you are able to independently validate it to reach the same conclusions yourself. Anything short of that is not science. If you are not able to review the methodology and data yourself - it is not science from where you are standing. If you are not able to reproduce the results - it is not scientifically true from where you are standing. What I perceived during the pandemic was a conflation of _trust_ with science. When a high ranking public official went on television and said "trust the science" - what they meant was "trust me when I say some people are following the philosophy of science, and that everyone along the chain of trust between me and those people have assured me that the conclusions they've reached are sound enough to base policy on. You should trust me, and by proxy everyone between me and those people practicing science." What they were _not_ saying was "you should follow the philosophy of science yourself." Science would require the data and methodology be published and readily available at the time of a press release encouraging independent verification from anyone and everyone. Folks who fail to generate the same results should be allowed to share those negative results for others to vet. Science would dictate that each individual person who receives the information start from a position of skepticism until the information has been vetted and validated on a personal level. Some people - likely most people - will choose to substitute trust for science on a personal level; but anyone who dictates that decision for others is not practicing science. |
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